


Lovers In A Dangerous Pocketverse

by Regularity



Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel (Comics), Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regularity/pseuds/Regularity
Summary: Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew are trapped in the pocket hellscape Nuclear Man created. Jess gets hurt on a mission, and Carol takes care of her. Their relationship evolves.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Carol/Jess Mini Exchange 2020





	Lovers In A Dangerous Pocketverse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [graceharper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceharper/gifts).



The plan was sound, but even sound plans go wrong.

They’d been trapped inside the bubble world Nuclear Man created for weeks now. Carol, Jess, both Jens, Maya, Ripley, and Som formed the nucleus of the resistance. Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, depowered She-Hulk and Hazmat, Echo, a civilian reporter with untapped potential, and the son of Nuclear Man disgusted with his father’s plans. Together they fought alongside other women trapped on Roosevelt Island, against metal-men and Nuclear Man’s revolting hatred of women. 

Carol donned additional armor, war paint, and went to war. Jess tied her hair back and painted the spider across her face. 

The battles were brutal. The fight seemed to go on forever. When it appeared that Som betrayed them, they had a difficult choice to make. Question him and trust him, or get rid of him? They chose the former, and planned around the latter.

So it was that Spider-Woman found herself on recon far too close to Nuclear Man’s base, searching for the tunnel entrance Som used to escape from Nuclear Man. She used her superior senses and reflexes to navigate the wasteland of rubble and broken robots without being seen, and came up short near the location Som had indicated.

The tunnel was here. It had a grate over it, which Jess didn’t expect. The grate was locked, but that could be remedied any number of ways.

What mattered was that it was here. Som hadn’t lied, and Jess grinned. This was what they needed. A way to infiltrate and take out the man responsible, Mr. “Carol Will Be My Baby Factory” himself. As if anyone was good enough for Carol Danvers, let alone this walking talking stereotype.

She held her hand to her ear, crouched in a field of debris, and activated the communications device. “Spider to Base, over.”

Hazmat answered, “Base responding. What’s your status, over?”

Jess hunkered down more as metal-men patrolled nearby, their rockets roaring as they scanned. If they turned her way, she was in trouble. “Operation is a go. Found our way in. Over.”

Hazmat audibly sighed with relief over comms. “Acknowledged. Get home, Spider. Over and out.”

Jess took a sprinter’s stance, waiting for her moment. Only the metal-men turned her direction, and she was faced with a dilemma. If they found her right now, their infiltration point was caught. If she fled right now, there wasn’t enough cover to get her safely across the battlefield against two flying metal-men.

She made her choice, and sprinted toward the metal-men as they flew her direction. The farther from the tunnel she was when their scans picked her up, the better.

And it didn’t take long. She turned for base, pinging her comms again, as the flying robots narrowed in on her and gave chase.

“Spider to Warbird, I picked up dinner for two.” Code for two bogeys on her tail.

Carol’s voice came back, rushed and worried. “On my way, Jess.”

Jess dove for cover as energy cannons fired and chunks of concrete ripped from the ground around her. She kept running, putting machines and rubble between her and the metal-men chasing her. 

“What’s the point of code names if you’re not gonna use ‘em?” she said.

“Shut up and don’t die!” Carol hissed. Jess definitely didn’t plan on doing the first, and the second, well, that wasn’t really up to her, now, was it?

Before she could respond, another rocketing metal-man came in from the side, and she leaped away from its energy cannon, but the other metal-men also fired theirs, and she twisted and rolled in the air to avoid them. 

She landed on an old, half-destroyed robot, whose power core exposed from her rough landing, and subsequently exploded. Jess flew up and away, battering her into the broken chunks of a statue.

Ribs cracked, and her cry of pain snuffed out as the air whooshed from her lungs. She held onto the stone as she struggled to draw breath and maintain consciousness. She was failing to do both.

As the metal-men descended on her, energy cannons charging, she had only a moment to wonder if Gerry would be okay without her. 

A bright light. Then oblivion, nothingness. 

She woke, which was something of a surprise. Her chest was bandaged, and an oxygen mask sat atop her face, pushing cool air into her lungs.

Carol was by her side, in the makeshift infirmary in their base. Her head hung between her legs, and her hands were wrapped in Jess’s. Jess squeezed, and coughed, which nearly caused her to pass out again. Carol’s head shot up and she wiped at her eyes and smiled. The war paint slashed below her eyes smudged. 

“Hey, you big doofus,” Carol said, scooting her chair closer. “We were thinking about finishing the mission while you slept.” Carol helped Jess remove the oxygen mask, and Jess took tentative breaths. It hurt, but she managed.

“Did the takeout--” Jess started, coughed, and stopped. It hurt too much to talk.

Carol brushed the hair from Jess’s face, and Jess shook her head to get Carol to stop mothering. Carol said, “Maybe now you’ll listen to orders and shut the hell up for a minute.”

Jess complied, and looked around. She saw herself in a cracked mirror, and tried not to laugh. Her spider facepaint was completely ruined and she looked like a horror movie monster. But alive, and safe.

Carol updated her. The plan was set, their route secured by her scouting. As soon as Jess was healed, they were going to move. Not being able to talk frustrated Jess, but she listened to her friend talk, covering the silence. Saying with babble what the woman had trouble saying out loud: I don’t know what I’d do if you died. They were neither of them all that great at this part. At being useless. At being needed.

Jess shook her head and concentrated on whispering without moving her chest. “You--you should be in the fight. Not playing nursemaid.”

Carol scoffed. “I will be. Nuclear Man’s gone to ground. We’re pretty sure he’s waiting for us to make a move, which screams trap.” When Jess tried to speak again, Carol held up a hand. “You’ll heal in a day or two. We can wait that long, because we absolutely need you in the infiltration team. If he makes a move in the meantime, I’ll be out there, pew-pewing on your behalf.”

But he didn’t. Aside from a few metal-men skirmishes, the battlefront was quiet. The first night was long, and Jess suffered the ministrations of her best friend, letting her change her bandages and clean her up, because there wasn’t much she could do to stop it. If she tried to move too much, the mending ribs might splinter, and splintered ribs could puncture lungs. Then where would she be? 

So Carol cared for her. By the second night, Jess was tender and sore, but able to talk and move a bit without total agony. She lay propped up on pillows playing five card draw with the two Jens and Carol, and she’d heard often enough from Logan that Carol was a shark at poker, but this was just brutal. She felt like the deck of cards they used. Bent, broken, a little singed. Recovered from some shop or other along the narrow strip of this island in the earliest days of this pocket apocalypse.

Both Jens gave up sometime around their third candy bars lost against a Carol bluff. Sugar and salt were the only currencies that truly mattered at this point. Jess managed to keep a few snacks for herself and bowed out, but Carol kept shuffling and cutting the deck while Jess munched on a chocolate truffle. It hurt to swallow, but this pain was worth it.

“No losses today,” Carol said, performing some kind of trick shuffle where half the deck slid over the other half in a single hand. Jess kind of wanted to try it.

She said, “Good. I don’t wanna be the reason people are out there getting hurt, waiting on my stupid bones to mend so we can finish this.”

Carol flicked a card at Jess, visibly annoyed when Jess caught it deftly. “Hey, we’re all in this together, and we’re gonna get you back to your kid.”

Being without Gerry was almost as painful as the broken ribs. Almost. “At least he’s not even gonna realize I’ve been gone. Weeks in here, hours out there.”

“It’s the best vacation you could hope for,” Carol joked, and Jess threw the card back at her, which Carol did not catch or dodge. It plunked off her chest and to the little table she was shuffling on.

“I still miss the little guy.”

“And Rog?”

“Him, too.” She could definitely use a little release, and her insides warmed at the thought. 

Carol’s face pinked a little in the cheeks. She coughed politely and said, “Hey, uh, I think your pheromones activated.”

Jess shrugged. “Can’t really do anything about it. Gimme the deck, I wanna try that.”

Carol’s fingers lingered on Jess’s as she passed the cards over, and Jess held the cards, trying to mimic the motions Carol had done. After twisting the cards and dropping them all over herself a couple times, Carol laughed and took the cards back.

“Like this.” She did it again a couple times, folding the deck over itself, and Jess thought she had the motion now. But Carol positioned Jess’s hand for her, and guided it through the motions. “Your fingers are more dexterous than mine, this should be easy for you.”

“Don’t go throwing spider bias at me, woman.” But after she had the motions down, she practiced it a few times until she could flick the cards over faster than Carol, and her friend grunted, leaning back. 

“Told you.”

“You know me so well.”

Carol’s face was still flushed, and Jess asked, “You thinking about Rhodey?”

“I wasn’t, but now I guess I am.” That was interesting. “I kind of thought we’d have time to work things out after that lunch, but now I’ve been stuck in here for a month, with a bunch of feelings I don’t know what to do with.”

Jess suddenly thought she might have a suggestion what to do with some of those feelings, and she coughed slightly, wincing at the pain, to cover her suddenly flushing face.

Carol brought her some water, and held her head still while she drank. Afterwards, she took the cup back and set it aside, but didn’t move away from Jess on the bed. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when we shut Nuclear Man down and get out of here?”

“After getting Gerry?”

“Of course.”

“Order a pizza.”

Carol chuckled. “Always thinking with your stomach, Michelangelo.”

“What about you, Danvers?”

“A quick, hot shower followed by a loooong, warm soak.”

Jess smiled, leaning back. “Don’t talk about baths right now.”

Carol nudged Jess and said, “The drip of the faucet. The steam opening up your pores. That lilac bubble stuff you like. A good book and a babysitter.”

Jess made a tiny noise of desire deep in her throat. “That sounds far too nice. Though I’d just as soon have a bucket of popcorn and a bad slasher flick. We can yell at the mistakes instead of making them ourselves.”

“You didn’t make a mistake, Jess.”

“Who said I was talking about me?”

Carol grabbed Jess’s hand and squeezed. “You can deflect all you want, but mistakes happen.”

“Oh yeah?” Jess pulled Carol’s hand up and kissed the back of it. “You don’t seem to make too many.”

Carol leaned in, and her face was flushed even more than before. Jess wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but she held onto Carol’s hand. 

Carol whispered, far too close to Jess’s face, “What would you say if I wanted to make a mistake right now?”

Jess’s sharp intake of breath hurt, but she hardly noticed. Was this happening? Was she doing it with her pheromones? She’d thought about it before, and there were enough whispers in the hero community to make anyone second guess it, anyway.

Jess screwed up her courage. “Who says it would be a mistake?” she whispered back.

Carol’s breath was heavy against Jess’s cheek, and their lips met. Sweetly, briefly, Carol and Jessica kissed. Carol was the first to break away, and Jess sucked in a great breath, then coughed, which sent a new wave of pain spiraling out of her chest.

Carol touched her fingers to her lips, as if in shock. Then she licked her lips and searched Jess’s eyes.

Jess didn’t know what to say, but she knew one thing. She desperately wanted to do that again. She pulled on Carol’s hand, the one she still held, and smiled. 

Carol’s lips cracked into a grin, but she pulled back, breaking the connection. “We should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

“Carol?” What was going on? Had she made a huge mistake, letting this happen? Was it all going to implode, this lovely friendship? 

Carol only smiled wider, brushing the long side of her hair back. “Your ribs should be healed by then.”

Jess sighed. She’d blown it. “We can finish the fight, and forget this ever happened.”

Carol’s eyes went wide with concern, and she rushed back to Jess’s bedside, took her hands in hers. “No, you jerk. Your hormones won’t be affecting me tomorrow, and you’ll be better. We can make the mistake worth it.” She kissed Jess’s cheek and rushed off before Jess could do more than utter surprise.

Who could sleep with that waiting for her?

She did, though, and her dreams were a mess of complications. But the throughline of it all was that they loved each other, deeply. They pretty much always had. You didn’t relive another woman’s memories and not form a bond. Maybe this was something? Or maybe it was just a way to pass the long, post-apocalyptic nights. But Jess wanted to find out.

The next day was slow, and there were a few close calls where Carol had to be out in the fight, making sure no one died, and testing a new theory that the metal-men now had humans inside, forced to fight for Nuclear Man or prisoners. It didn’t seem to matter in the end. Fighting was harder when innocent lives were on the line.

But Jess was cleared to leave the infirmary that night, and she hadn’t spoken to Carol at all since the night before. So it was with some trepidation that she went to the room she shared with Carol and She-Hulk. She-Hulk Jen was on night watch.

Carol and Jess were alone in the room, and Jess tried her hardest to control her pheromones. She could manage it sometimes, and she needed to now.

“Tomorrow’s the day,” Carol said.

“Take the fight to Nuclear Man, end this if we can.”

“We will. He’s got a trap for us, but he’s also an idiot and a ridiculous misogynist stereotype. He hasn’t got a chance.”

Jess stretched her arms, cracked her back. The ribs were healed, the bruises faded, but she was still a little tender. Jess said, “So it’s our last night in this sexist hell bubble?”

“The Post-Apocketlypse will come to an end.” Carol’s stupid, beautiful face grinned so hard. 

Jess groaned. “Oh. My. God. How long have you been waiting to unravel that on me?”

“I thought of it the night I got here.”

“Ugh, nevermind. I’m gonna go stay with Ripley.”

Carol blocked Jess’s path, still grinning hugely. She bit her lower lip, then, staring into Jess’s eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.”

Jess moved closer to Carol. “I was hoping you’d say that.” She slipped a hand into Carol’s hair and pulled her in. “No pheromones tonight.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because we’d have already done _this_.” She put her other arm around Carol, massaging her back as their lips met once again. Carol pushed on Jess, forcing her to back up and fall on Carol’s cot, which collapsed when they both dropped to it.

Jess laughed awkwardly, untangling herself, and Carol giggled into Jess’s lips as she pulled her back up. A sudden fear gripped Jess, and she held Carol at bay for a second.

“Hey, this isn’t gonna change anything, one way or the other, right?”

Carol sighed. “I think you know better than that. But we’ll always be friends. Nothing can change that.”

Friends. Jess nodded. It would have to do. 

Carol grabbed Jess at the waist and lifted her easily against the wall, pulling at her shirt, then kissing and caressing her stomach. Jess planted her feet on the wall, sticking to it several feet from the ground, and held onto Carol’s shoulders, enjoying the butterfly sensation of Carol’s lips across her.

Carol grinned when she realized Jess was stuck to the wall, and released her waist. Her hands explored, and Jess gasped. This was something altogether new, and different, and incredible. 

Carol lifted up on her own flight powers, pressing Jess into the wall and kissing her neck, trailing up until Jess pulled her mouth up to hers, impatient and needful.

“I’ve never made out on the wall before,” Carol said breathlessly. 

“I bet you always wondered.”

“The thought crossed my mind. Now shut up.” Jess did. There were too many things to try. Too much to explore.

The final battle ended. Nuclear Man and Som were gone. Rogue and Carol buried a long-held hatchet. The Jens got their powers back. The barrier on this little pocket of the universe was falling. Everything was returning to normal, and Jess’s stomach churned at the thought.

To see Gerry again would be wonderful. To ignore what had happened between Jess and Carol would be agony. A kind of death. But if Carol thought it was a mistake, a way to pass the time and get a little release, like prisoners without any choices, Jess would let it go.

Right? She could do that. 

Once the civilians were settled, and the relief efforts were underway, Carol landed next to Jess, an uncertain frown on her face.

“So,” Carol said.

“So. I guess this is finally over.”

“I bet you’re ready to get back to Gerry, and…” She trailed off. She couldn’t say it. So Jess would do it for her. Make this easy on both of them. They were alone in the field at the moment, everyone occupied elsewhere. 

“Hey. We don’t have to have a big thing about it. What happens in the pocket apocalypse stays in the pocket apocalypse, right?”

Carol looked around, drawing a deep breath. She shook her head and sighed. “Maybe it shouldn’t?”

Their silly grins said more than words ever could.


End file.
